Der Ring des Nibelungen - Metropolitan Opera

Richard Wagner
Der Ring
des
Nibelungen
CONDUCTOR
Fabio Luisi
PRODUCTION
Robert Lepage
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
Neilson Vignola
SET DESIGNER
Carl Fillion
COSTUME DESIGNER
François St-Aubin
LIGHTING DESIGNER
Etienne Boucher
VIDEO IMAGE ARTIST
Lionel Arnould
GENERAL MANAGER
Peter Gelb
MUSIC DIRECTOR
James Levine
PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR
Fabio Luisi
Götterdämmerung
Libretto by the composer
Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 6:00–11:45 pm
New Production
The production of Götterdämmerung was made
possible by a generous gift from Ann Ziff and
the Ziff Family, in memory of William Ziff.
In collaboration with Ex Machina

2011–12 Season
The 230th Metropolitan Opera performance of
Richard Wagner’s
Götterdämmerung
conductor
Fabio Luisi
in order of vocal appearance
First Norn
Maria Radner
Second Norn
Elizabeth Bishop
Third Norn
Heidi Melton
Brünnhilde
Katarina Dalayman
Siegfried
Stephen Gould
Gunther
Iain Paterson
Hagen
Hans-Peter König
Gutrune
Wendy Bryn Harmer *
Waltraute
Karen Cargill DEBUT
Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 6:00–11:45 pm
Alberich
Eric Owens
Woglinde
Erin Morley *
Wellgunde
Jennifer Johnson Cano *
Flosshilde
Tamara Mumford *
stage horn solo
Erik Ralske

A scene from the prologue of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung
Chorus Master Donald Palumbo
Stage Band Conductor Gregory Buchalter
Musical Preparation Linda Hall, John Keenan, Howard Watkins, Carrie-Ann Matheson,
Jonathan Kelly, and John Fisher
Assistant Stage Directors Gina Lapinski, Stephen Pickover, J. Knighten Smit, and
Paula Williams
German Coach Irene Spiegelman
Prompter Carrie-Ann Matheson
Scenery, properties, and electrical props constructed and painted by Scène Éthique
(Varennes, Québec) and Metropolitan Opera Shops
Costumes executed by Metropolitan Opera Costume Department
Wigs executed by Metropolitan Opera Wig Department
EX MACHINA PRODUCTION STAFF
Artistic Consultant Rebecca Blankenship
Production Manager Bernard Gilbert, Assistant Viviane Paradis
Technical Director Michel Gosselin, Assistant Éric Gautron
Automation Designer Tobie Horswill, Assistant Stanislas Élie
Video Project Manager Catherine Guay
Initial Interactive Video Designer Holger Förterer
Properties Project Manager Stéphane Longpré
Rig & Safety Adviser Guy St-Amour
Costume Project Manager Charline Boulerice
Puppeteering Consultant Martin Vaillancourt
Musical Consultant Georges Nicholson
Rehearsal Stage Manager Félix Dagenais
Interactive Content Designers Réalisations.net
Production Coordinators Vanessa Landry-Claverie and Nadia Bellefeuille
Producer Michel Bernatchez
Projectors provided by Panasonic
Projection technology consultants Scharff Weisberg
Additional projection equipment Christie Digital
* Graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program
This performance is made possible in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.
Before the performance begins, please switch off cell phones and other electronic
devices. Latecomers will not be admitted during the performance.
Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

34
Synopsis
Prologue
scene 1 a high mountain plateau
scene 2 Brünnhilde’s mountaintop
Act I
scene 1 The hall of the Gibichungs on the Rhine
scene 2 Brünnhilde’s mountaintop
Intermission (at APPROXIMATELY 8:00 PM)
Act II
The hall of the Gibichungs
Intermission (at APPROXIMATELY 9:50 PM)
Act III
scene 1 A forest clearing by the Rhine
scene 2 The hall of the Gibichungs
Prologue
At night in the mountains, the three Norns, daughters of Erda, weave the rope
of destiny. They tell how Wotan ordered the world ash tree, from which his spear
was once cut, to be felled and its wood piled around Valhalla. The burning of the
pyre will mark the end of the old order. Suddenly the rope breaks. Their wisdom
ended, the Norns descend into the earth.
Dawn breaks on the Valkyries’ rock, and Siegfried and Brünnhilde emerge.
Having cast protective spells on Siegfried, Brünnhilde sends him into the world
to do heroic deeds. As a pledge of his love, Siegfried gives her the ring he took
from the dragon Fafner, and she offers her horse, Grane, in return. Siegfried sets
off on his travels.
Act I
In the hall of the Gibichungs on the banks of the Rhine, Hagen advises his halfsiblings,
Gunther and Gutrune, to strengthen their rule through marriage. He
suggests Brünnhilde as Gunther’s bride and Siegfried as Gutrune’s husband.
Since only the strongest hero can pass through the fire on Brünnhilde’s rock,
Hagen proposes a plan: a potion will make Siegfried forget Brünnhilde and fall
in love with Gutrune. To win her, he will claim Brünnhilde for Gunther. When
Siegfried’s horn is heard from the river, Hagen calls him ashore. Gutrune offers
him the potion. Siegfried drinks and immediately confesses his love for her.
When Gunther describes the perils of winning his chosen bride, Siegfried offers
to use the Tarnhelm to transform himself into Gunther. The two men take an
oath of blood brotherhood and set out on their quest.

Waltraute, horrified by the impending destruction of Valhalla, comes to
Brünnhilde’s rock, pleading with her sister to return the ring to the Rhinemaidens,
its rightful owners, to save the gods. Brünnhilde refuses, declaring she could
never part with Siegfried’s gift. Waltraute leaves in despair. Hearing Siegfried’s
horn in the distance, Brünnhilde is overjoyed but becomes terrified when a
stranger appears before her, claiming her as Gunther’s bride and tearing the
ring from her hand.
Act II
Outside the Gibichungs’ hall at night, Hagen’s father, Alberich, appears to his
son as if in a dream and reminds him to win back the ring. Dawn breaks and
Siegfried arrives. Hagen summons the Gibichungs to welcome Gunther, who
enters with the humiliated Brünnhilde. When she sees Siegfried, she furiously
denounces him, but he, still under the spell of the potion, doesn’t understand
her anger. Noticing the ring on Siegfried’s finger, Brünnhilde demands to know
who gave it to him, since it was taken from her, supposedly by Gunther, just
the night before. She accuses Siegfried of having stolen the ring and declares
that he is her husband. Siegfried protests, swearing on Hagen’s spear that he
has done no wrong. Brünnhilde now only wants vengeance. Hagen offers to
kill Siegfried, but she explains that she has protected his body with magic—
except for his back, which she knows he would never turn to an enemy. Gunther
hesitatingly joins the conspiracy of murder.
Act III
Siegfried, separated from his hunting party, meets the three Rhinemaidens
by the banks of the river. They ask him to return the ring to them, but he
refuses in order to prove he doesn’t fear its curse. The Rhinemaidens predict
his imminent death and disappear as Hagen, Gunther, and the other hunters
arrive. Encouraged by Hagen, Siegfried tells of his youth and his life with Mime,
the forging of the sword Nothung, and his fight with the dragon. While he is
talking, Hagen makes him drink an antidote to the potion. His memory restored,
Siegfried describes how he walked through the fire and woke Brünnhilde. At
this, Hagen stabs him in the back with the spear on which Siegfried had sworn.
When Gunther expresses his shock, Hagen claims that he avenged a false oath.
Siegfried remembers Brünnhilde with his last words and dies.
Back at the hall, Gutrune wonders what has happened to Siegfried. When his body
is brought in, she accuses Gunther of murder, who replies that Hagen is to blame.
The two men fight about the ring and Gunther is killed. As Hagen reaches for the
ring, the dead Siegfried threateningly raises his arm. Brünnhilde enters and calmly
orders a funeral pyre to be built on the banks of the Rhine. She denounces the
gods for their guilt in Siegfried’s death, takes the ring from his hand, and promises
it to the Rhinemaidens. Then she lights the pyre and leaps into the flames. The
river overflows its banks and destroys the hall. Hagen, trying to get to the ring, is
dragged into the water by the Rhinemaidens, who joyfully reclaim their gold. In
the distance, Valhalla and the gods are seen engulfed in flames.
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36
In Focus
Richard Wagner
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Premiere: Bayreuth Festival House, 1876
The Ring is a four-day saga depicting the passing of the Old Age of gods,
giants, dwarves, dragons, and nature spirits, and the dawning of the Age of
Man. Wagner, who wrote his own librettos, created a new musical-dramatic
vocabulary to tell this story: characters, things, and ideas are represented by
leitmotifs, or “leading motives,” musical themes that are continually developed
and transformed over the course of the cycle. The Ring’s artistic scope is vast
and the musical and aesthetic implications are endless and varied. At its core,
however, it is a drama driven by the actions of a handful of memorable characters.
Chief among these are Wotan, lord of the gods, whose ideals are loftier than
his methods; the magnificently evil dwarf Alberich, the Nibelung of the title; the
loving twins Siegmund and Sieglinde; their savage child Siegfried; and, perhaps
above all, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, who encompasses both humanity and divinity.
The Creator
Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was the complex, controversial creator of music–
drama masterpieces that stand at the center of today’s operatic repertory. Born
in Leipzig, Germany, he was an artistic revolutionary who reimagined every
supposition about music and theater. Wagner insisted that words and music
were equals in his works. This approach led to the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk,
or “total work of art,” combining music, poetry, architecture, painting, and other
disciplines, a notion that has had an impact on creative fields far beyond opera.
The Setting
The drama of the Ring unfolds in a mythical world, at the center of which is
the Rhine river as the embodiment of nature. In the first part of the cycle, Das
Rheingold, the settings are remote and otherwordly: ethereal mountaintops and
caves deep under the earth. Throughout the subsequent operas, the locations
gradually become more familiar as parts of the human world, with only nature
(the Rhine) continuing seamlessly over time.
Götterdämmerung: The Music
The musical ideas set forth in the first three parts of the Ring find their full
expression in this opera. Götterdämmerung contains several of the one-onone
confrontations typical of the Ring, but a considerable amount of the vocal
writing departs from the forms established in the previous operas. The first

appearance of true ensemble singing in the trio at the end of Act II and the
use of a chorus signify a shift from the rarified world of the gods to an entirely
human perspective. Wagner famously interrupted work on the Ring for more
than a decade, while in the midst of writing Siegfried, to compose Tristan und
Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. When he returned to complete the
cycle, his creative abilities had evolved. Perhaps the most striking orchestral
passage of the entire Ring is Siegfried’s Funeral Music in Act III, which is built
around a succession of leitmotifs from all parts of the cycle that represent the
hero’s life story, interspersed with the repetition of two thunderous chords that
encapsulate the finality of death. Götterdämmerung presents unique challenges
for the lead tenor and soprano, culminating in a cathartic 15-minute narrative by
Brünnhilde that is among the longest and most powerful unbroken vocal solos
in the operatic repertory.
The Ring at the Met
Die Walküre was the first segment of the Ring to be heard at the Met, in 1885,
during the company’s second season. Leopold Damrosch conducted a cast that
included two veterans of the Bayreuth Festival, Amalie Materna and Marianne
Brandt. After Damrosch’s death, the remaining Ring operas received their
American premieres at the Met between 1887 and 1889, conducted by Wagner’s
former assistant at Bayreuth, Anton Seidl. The complete cycle was presented
eight times in the spring of 1889, including tour performances in Philadelphia,
Boston, Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Louis. The uncut cycles conducted by
Franz Schalk in 1898–99 began a sequence of 19 consecutive seasons with
Ring cycles. Performances resumed after World War I in 1924–25, conducted
by Artur Bodanzky, and continued without interruption until 1945. A production
designed by Lee Simonson, first seen in 1947–48, had a short life and was
succeeded, beginning in 1967, by a new staging directed and conducted by
Herbert von Karajan, with sets by Günther Schneider-Siemssen, that originated
at the Salzburg Easter Festival. It was not completed until 1974–75, without
Karajan, and then had only three cycle performances. Otto Schenk’s production,
with new designs by Schneider-Siemssen, was introduced over three seasons
beginning with Die Walküre on Opening Night 1986. The complete cycle was
first seen in the spring of 1989 and made its final appearance in the 2008–09
season. All 21 cycles of the Schenk production were conducted by James Levine.
The current staging by Robert Lepage, the eighth in the history of the Met, was
unveiled with the premiere of Das Rheingold, again conducted by Maestro
Levine, on Opening Night of the 2010–11 season. This spring’s performances,
conducted by Fabio Luisi, are the first complete cycles of this production.
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37

most astounding fact in all Wagner’s career was probably the
writing of the text of Siegfried’s Death in 1848,” says Ernest Newman in
“The
Wagner as Man and Artist. “We can only stand amazed at the audacity
of the conception, the imaginative power the work displays, the artistic growth
it reveals since Lohengrin was written, and the total breach it indicates with the
whole of the operatic art of his time. But Siegfried’s Death was impossible in the
musical idiom of Lohengrin; and Wagner must have known this intuitively.”
Even so, it is unlikely that in November of 1848 Wagner understood that his
new opera would not be completed for decades, or that it would—under the
title Götterdämmerung—be the culmination of one of the greatest masterpieces
in all of Western civilization, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Earlier that year Wagner
had finished orchestrating Lohengrin. He was becoming increasingly active in
the political turmoil sweeping Dresden (as well as much of Europe). He also
made sketches for operas based on the lives of Friedrich Barbarossa and Jesus
of Nazareth. That summer he had written the essay “The Wibelungen: Worldhistory
from the Saga,” and later he would write “The Nibelung Myth: As Sketch
for a Drama.” But there is no indication that at this time Wagner was actively
planning on mining the Nibelung saga for more than Siegfried’s Death.
In May of 1849 the uprisings in Dresden were put down. Wanted by the
police for his political activity, Wagner fled, eventually settling in Switzerland.
He produced a number of prose works over the next few years, including the
important Opera and Drama, written during the winter of 1850–51, and planned
an opera called Wieland the Smith. In 1850 he also revisited his libretto for
Siegfried’s Death, making some musical sketches.
The more Wagner thought about it, the more he realized that for the story of
the hero’s end to be truly understood by the audience, they needed to know more
about what had gone before. So in 1851 he wrote the libretto to Young Siegfried,
which was then followed (in reverse order) by Die Walküre and Das Rheingold,
spelling out in greater detail why the events of Siegfried’s Death occurred. It was
not until October of 1869—after composing the music for the first three works in
the Ring, as well as Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg—that
Wagner again took up the task of creating the music of the drama now known
as Götterdämmerung. The name change reflected a significant shift in the opera
itself, from the death of its hero to the downfall of the gods themselves.
In the earliest version of the story, Brünnhilde took the body of Siegfried
to Valhalla, where his death redeemed the gods. Before igniting Siegfried’s
funeral pyre, she announced, “Hear then, ye mighty Gods; your wrong-doing
is annulled; thank him, the hero who took your guilt upon him…. One only shall
rule, All-Father, Glorious One, Thou [Wotan]. This man [Siegfried] I bring you as
pledge of thy eternal might: good welcome give him, as is his desert!”
There has been much speculation about why Wagner changed the ending
of the Ring from this optimistic one, in which Wotan and the gods continued
38
Program Note

to rule, to the ending we know today, in which the gods perish. Sometimes this
shift is attributed to Wagner’s discovery of Schopenhauer’s The World as Will
and Representation, but that did not occur until the end of 1854, at which point
Wagner had completed the text for the Ring. Wagner’s optimism about a new
social order for Europe began crumbling as the revolts of 1848 and 1849 were
crushed, and by the time he began making a prose sketch for Young Siegfried
in May of 1851, he noted: “Guilt of the Gods, and their necessary downfall.
Siegfried’s mission. Self-annihilation of the Gods.”
Wagner’s Dresden friend August Röckel, who had only read the libretto
of the Ring, asked the composer a question that has puzzled audiences at
Götterdämmerung from the beginning: “Why, seeing that the gold is returned to
the Rhine, is it necessary for the gods to perish?”
“I believe that, at a good performance, even the most naïve spectator will be
left in no doubt on this point,” Wagner replied. “It must be said, however, that
the gods’ downfall is not the result of points in a contract…. No, the necessity of
this downfall arises from our innermost feelings. Thus it was important to justify
this sense of necessity emotionally…. I have once again realized how much of the
work’s meaning (given the nature of my poetic intent) is only made clear by the
music. I can now no longer bear to look at the poem [the libretto] without music.”
Or, as he put it in a letter to Franz Liszt, “The thing shall sound [the italics are
Wagner’s] in such a fashion that people shall hear what they cannot see.”
Thomas Mann brilliantly summed up the relationship between Wagner’s
words and music in the speech he gave on the 50th anniversary of the composer’s
death: “The texts around which it [the music] is woven, which it thereby makes
into drama, are not literature—but the music is. It seems to shoot up like a geyser
from the pre-civilized bedrock depths of myth (and not only ‘seems’; it really
does); but in fact—and at the same time—it is carefully considered, calculated,
supremely intelligent, full of shrewdness and cunning, and as literary in its
conception as the texts are musical in theirs.”
Which is why Wagner knew he could not compose the music of
Götterdämmerung until he had achieved absolute mastery of his compositional
technique, which, he explained to Röckel, had “become a close-knit unity: there
is scarcely a bar in the orchestra that does not develop out of the preceding unit.”
As he composed the Ring, Wagner greatly expanded his use of leitmotifs—bits
of melody, harmony, rhythm, even tonality—far beyond merely representing a
character or an object. They became infinitely malleable, and Wagner put them
together in ways that became not only increasingly subtle, but also superbly
expressive, adding layers of drama and emotion to the events taking place on
stage. Even if listeners have no knowledge of the leitmotifs, Wagner’s music is
still enormously potent and can be a life-changing experience.
“Music drama should be about the insides of the characters,” Wagner
said. “The object of music drama is the presentation of archetypal situations as
experienced by the participants [Wagner’s italics], and to this dramatic end music
is a means, albeit a uniquely expressive one.”
At first glance, after the uninterrupted flow of drama in the three preceding
parts of the Ring, the libretto of Götterdämmerung might seem a throwback. It has
39

40
Program Note CONTINUED
recognizable, easily excerptable arias, a marvelous love duet, a thrilling swearingof-blood-brotherhood
duet, a chilling vengeance trio, and rousing choruses. But
when Wagner finally began to compose the music for Götterdämmerung he did
not rewrite the libretto, other than to make some changes in the wording of
the final scene. He knew the libretto worked exactly as it should, providing him
with precisely the words and dramatic situations he needed to write some of the
greatest orchestral music ever conceived. And it is through the music that Wagner
can make dramatic points much more vividly than could be made through words.
One of the most shattering parts of Götterdämmerung is Siegfried’s Funeral
Music. Even played in the concert hall, shorn of the rest of the opera, it makes
a tremendous effect. In its proper place during a performance of the full drama,
it is overwhelming. A bit of insight into why this is so comes from the diary of
Wagner’s second wife, Cosima. The entry for September 29, 1871 reads:
‘I have composed a Greek chorus,’ R[ichard] exclaims to me in the
morning, ‘but a chorus which will be sung, so to speak, by the orchestra;
after Siegfried’s death, while the scene is being changed, the Siegmund
theme will be played, as if the chorus were saying: ‘This was his father’;
then the sword motive; and finally his own theme; then the curtain goes
up and Gutrune enters, thinking she had heard his horn. How could
words ever make the impression that these solemn themes, in their new
form, will evoke?’
Cosima does not mention the concept of a Greek chorus in connection with
the Immolation Scene or the great orchestral outpouring that follows Brünnhilde’s
words. But it is impossible not to think of these moments as a magnificent musical
threnody for everything that has gone before. Such a profound summing up of
complex lives, situations, and emotions must be expressed by the orchestra,
because mere words could not do them justice or provide the catharsis that
allows for a true transformation and a new beginning—all of which Wagner’s
music does, perfectly, at the end of Götterdämmerung.
Several years after the Ring had been given at Bayreuth in 1876, Cosima
noted in her diary: “In the evening, before supper, [Richard]…glances through
the conclusion of Götterdämmerung, and says that never again will he write
anything as complicated as that.” For many Wagnerians, he never wrote anything
better. —Paul Thomason
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The Cast and Creative Team
Fabio Luisi
conductor (genoa, italy)
this season New productions of Don Giovanni, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, and Manon,
complete Ring cycles, and a revival of La Traviata at the Met, concerts with the MET
Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Manon for his debut at La Scala, and concert engagements with
the Cleveland Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Vienna Symphony, and Oslo Philharmonic.
met appearances Le Nozze di Figaro, Elektra, Hansel and Gretel, Tosca, Lulu, Simon
Boccanegra, Die Ägyptische Helena, Turandot, Ariadne auf Naxos, Rigoletto, Das Rheingold,
and Don Carlo (debut, 2005).
career highlights He is principal conductor of the Met and a frequent guest of the Vienna
State Opera, Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, and Berlin’s Deutsche Oper and Staatsoper. He
made his Salzburg Festival debut in 2003 leading Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae (returning
the following season for Die Ägyptische Helena) and his American debut with the Lyric
Opera of Chicago leading Rigoletto. He also appears regularly with the Orchestre de Paris,
Bavarian Radio Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, and Rome’s Santa Cecilia Orchestra. He
was music director of the Dresden Staatskapelle and Semperoper from 2007 to 2010 and is
chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony and music director of Japan’s Pacific Music Festival.
Robert Lepage
director (quebec city, canada)
this season Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Met.
met production La Damnation de Faust (debut, 2008).
career highlights He is a director, scenic artist, playwright, actor, and film director. In 1984
his play Circulations toured Canada, which was followed by The Dragon’s Trilogy, Vinci,
Polygraph, and Tectonic Plates. He founded his production company, Ex Machina, in 1994
and has produced plays including The Seven Streams of the River Ota and A Midsummer
Night’s Dream. He wrote and directed his first feature film, Le Confessional, in 1994 and
went on to direct the films The Polygraph, Nô, Possible Worlds, and an adaptation of
his play The Far Side of the Moon. In 1997 he opened The Caserne, a multidisciplinary
production center in Quebec City where he and his team have since created and produced
opera productions, film projects, and theatrical and visual works including The Andersen
Project (2005), Lipsynch (2007), The Blue Dragon (2008), Eonnagata (2009), and The Image
Mill (the largest architectural projection ever achieved). He is the creator and director
of Cirque du Soleil’s KÀ (a permanent show in residence in Las Vegas) and Totem, and
directed Peter Gabriel’s Secret World Tour (1993) and his Growing Up Tour (2002). Operatic
directorial projects include The Rake’s Progress at La Monnaie (2007), Lorin Maazel’s 1984
for Covent Garden (2005), Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung for the Canadian Opera
Company (1992), La Damnation de Faust (which was seen in Japan in 1999 and in Paris in
2001, 2004, and 2006), and The Nightingale and Other Short Fables, which has been seen
in Toronto, Aix-en-Provence, Lyon, New York, and Quebec.
41

The Cast and Creative Team CONTINUED
Neilson Vignola
associate director (montreal, canada)
this season Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Met.
met production La Damnation de Faust (debut, 2008).
career highlights He has been the director of productions for several festivals in Quebec,
including the International Festival of New Dance and the Festival de Théâtre des
Amériques. Since 1981 he has worked on numerous productions with the Quebec Opera,
and he was the director of productions for the Montreal Opera from 1990 to 1993. He has
collaborated with Robert Lepage and Ex Machina on La Damnation de Faust (Japan’s
Saito Kinen Festival and Paris’s Bastille Opera), Maazel’s 1984 (Covent Garden), and The
Rake’s Progress (La Monnaie in Brussels). He has also been the technical director and tour
manager for Cirque du Soleil’s Saltimbanco, worked with Lepage on Cirque du Soleil’s
permanent show KÀ, now in residence in Las Vegas, and was the director of creation for
the company’s permanent show Zaia in Macao. He worked again with Lepage on Cirque
du Soleil’s latest touring show, Totem, which opened last May in Montreal.
Carl Fillion
set designer (quebec city, canada)
this season Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Met.
met production La Damnation de Faust (debut, 2008).
career highlights Since creating the set designs for Robert Lepage’s play The Seven
Streams of the River Ota in 1993, he has worked with the director and Ex Machina on 15
productions, including Elsinore, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Geometry of Miracles,
La Celestina, Jean-Sans-Nom, and the operas La Damnation de Faust, 1984, The Rake’s
Progress, and The Nightingale and Other Short Fables. In addition to working with
Lepage, he has worked on various productions in Quebec and Europe, including Simon
Boccanegra for Barcelona’s Liceu, The Burial at Thebes for Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, and
Totem (directed by Lepage) for Cirque du Soleil.
François St-Aubin
costume designer (montreal, canada)
this season Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Met.
met productions Das Rheingold (debut, 2010).
career highlights He has worked with Robert Lepage since 20007, when he designed
costumes for The Blue Dragon. Since graduating from Canada’s National Theatre School
he has designed costumes for more than 80 theater productions, a dozen operas, and
several contemporary dance companies. Work with Canada’s Stratford Festival includes
costumes for The Count of Monte Cristo, An Ideal Husband, and Don Juan. He has also
42

designed costumes for Carmen for Montreal Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, and
San Diego Opera, and Macbeth in Sydney, Melbourne, and Montreal.
Etienne Boucher
lighting designer (montreal, canada)
this season Wagner’s Ring cycle at the Met.
met productions Das Rheingold (debut, 2010).
career highlights He has worked on over 100 productions for theater, dance, musical comedy,
and opera since 1999. He has worked with Ex Machina and Robert Lepage since 2004,
developing their work together on shows including Totem (currently touring with Cirque du
Soleil), La Celestina, Lipsynch, The Rake’s Progress, and The Nightingale and Other Short
Fables. In 2011 he was awarded the Redden Award for Excellence in Lighting Design.
Lionel Arnould
video image artist (quebec city, canada)
this season Götterdämmerung for his debut at the Met.
career highlights He studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Épinal, France, and was
introduced to the world of computer graphics in 1991. After moving to Canada in 1995,
he discovered the artistic aspects of multimedia while working on several projects for
Ex Machina (The Dragon’s Trilogy, Busker’s Opera, and 1984). Since that time he has
specialized in video projection design and has worked on numerous contemporary
music projects (including Gryphon Trio’s Constantinople and John Oswald’s Radiant),
contemporary theatre (Théâtre Péril and Théâtre Blanc), and museum installations
(Quebec’s Museum of Civilization).
Karen Cargill
mezzo-soprano (arbroath, scotland)
this season Waltraute in Götterdämmerung at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and for her U.S.
debut at the Met.
career highlights Recent performances include Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and
Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri with the Scottish Opera and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly
with English National Opera. She appears regularly in concerts with the BBC Symphony
and London Philharmonic Orchestras, Hallé Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic,
London Symphony Orchestra, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. In past seasons she has
sung with the Berlin Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony,
Rotterdam Philharmonic, and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. She has also appeared at the
Tanglewood Festival with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Edinburgh Festival with
the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and in recital at London’s Wigmore Hall.
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The Cast and Creative Team CONTINUED
Katarina Dalayman
soprano (stockholm, sweden)
this season Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung at the Met, the
Vienna State Opera, and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, and her first performances in the
title role of Carmen with Stockholm’s Royal Opera.
met appearances Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde (debut, 1999),
the Duchess of Parma in Busoni’s Doktor Faust, Sieglinde in Die Walküre, Lisa in The
Queen of Spades, and Marie in Wozzeck.
career highlights She has sung the title role of Elektra, Maddalena in Andrea Chénier,
and Brünnhilde in Ring performances in Stockholm; Brünnhilde in Siegfried at the Aix-en-
Provence Festival; Desdemona in Otello, Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Mimì
in La Bohème, and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser in Stuttgart; Marie at Covent Garden and
Paris; Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos in Paris, Brussels, Dresden, and Munich; Tosca in
Copenhagen and Berlin; Lisa with Lyric Opera of Chicago and in Munich; the Duchess of
Parma at the Salzburg Festival; Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle at Covent Garden; and Kundry
in Parsifal at Paris’s Bastille Opera.
Wendy Bryn Harmer
soprano (roseville, california)
this season Freia in Das Rheingold, Ortlinde in Die Walküre, Gutrune in Götterdämmerung,
and Emma in Khovanshchina at the Met and a concert with the Boston Conservatory.
met appearances The First Lady in The Magic Flute, Chloë in The Queen of Spades, the
Third Norn in Götterdämmerung, First Bridesmaid in Le Nozze di Figaro (debut, 2005),
a Flower Maiden in Parsifal, Barena in Jen ° ufa, a Servant in Die Ägyptische Helena, and
Dunyasha in War and Peace.
career highlights Recent performances include Glauce in Cherubini’s Medea for her debut
at the Glimmerglass Opera, Wanda in Offenbach’s La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein
and Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito with Opera Boston, Adalgisa in Norma at the Palm
Beach Opera, Mimì in La Bohème at the Utah Opera Festival, and Gerhilde in Die Walküre
for her debut with the San Francisco Opera. She is a graduate of the Met’s Lindemann
Young Artist Development Program.

Stephen Gould
tenor (roanoke, virginia)
this season Siegfried in Siegfried and Götterdämmerung at the Met, Munich’s Bavarian
State Opera, and Vienna State Opera, and the title role of Tannhäuser with the Vienna
State Opera.
met appearances Erik in Der Fliegende Holländer (debut, 2010).
career highlights He has sung Tannhäuser in Paris, Erik with Munich’s Bavarian State Opera,
Siegfried in Ring cycles and Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth Festival, Bacchus in Ariadne auf
Naxos and Parsifal in Graz, Florestan in Fidelio in Rome, and Parsifal at the Vienna State
Opera. Concert engagements include Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra
in Berlin and Munich; Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder in Montreal, Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam,
and Helsinki; and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at the Bergen Festival, Carnegie Hall, and in
Paris, Vienna, and Budapest.
Hans-Peter König
bass (düsseldorf, germany)
this season Fafner in Das Rheingold and Siegfried, Hunding in Die Walküre, and Hagen
in Götterdämmerung at the Met, Osmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Duisburg,
Hunding in Düsseldorf, and Hagen in Munich.
met appearances Fafner, Hunding, Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte (debut, 2010), and Daland in
Der Fliegende Holländer.
career highlights A member of Düsseldorf’s Deutsche Oper am Rhein, he was awarded
the title of Kammersänger there for his outstanding contributions to music. His wideranging
repertoire encompasses leading bass roles of Wagner, Verdi, Mozart, Tchaikovsky,
and Strauss, among others, which he has sung with many of the world’s leading opera
companies. He has appeared as a guest artist at opera houses and festivals including
Covent Garden, the Bayreuth Festival, the Baden-Baden Festival, La Scala, Deutsche Oper
Berlin, Barcelona’s Liceu, Florence’s Maggio Musicale, and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera,
as well as in Dresden, Tokyo, Hamburg, and São Paulo.
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The Cast and Creative Team CONTINUED
Eric Owens
bass-baritone (philadelphia, pennsylvania)
this season Alberich in Das Rheingold, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung at the Met; the
Storyteller in John Adams’s A Flowering Tree with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; and
three appearances at Carnegie Hall: Jochanaan in concert performances of Salome with
the Cleveland Orchestra, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Boston Symphony, and in
recital at Zankel Hall.
met appearances General Leslie Groves in Doctor Atomic (debut, 2008) and Sarastro in The
Magic Flute.
career highlights General Leslie Groves with the San Francisco Opera (world premiere)
and Lyric Opera of Chicago, Oroveso in Norma at Covent Garden and in Philadelphia,
and Fiesco in Simon Boccanegra, Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and Porgy in Porgy
and Bess with Washington National Opera. He has also sung Ramfis in Aida in Houston,
the Speaker in Die Zauberflöte with Paris’s Bastille Opera, Rodolfo in La Sonnambula in
Bordeaux, Ferrando in Il Trovatore and Colline in La Bohème in Los Angeles, the title role
of Handel’s Hercules with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Ramfis in San Francisco.
Iain Paterson
bass-baritone (glasgow, scotland)
this season Gunther in Götterdämmerung at the Met and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera,
Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro with English National Opera, and Fasolt in Das Rheingold
with the Detusche Staatsoper Berlin. He also appears in concert with the Cleveland
Orchestra and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.
met appearances Gunther (debut, 2009).
career highlights Jochanann in Salome and Fasolt for the Salzburg Easter Festival, Gunther
with the Paris Opera, Amfortas in Parsifal, Méphistophélès in Faust and Mozart’s Figaro
with English National Opera, the title role of Don Giovanni with English National Opera
and Chicago Opera Theater, and Mr. Redburn in Billy Budd at the Glyndebourne Festival.
He has also appeared in concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony
Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic
Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
ADDITIONAL EX MACHINA PRODUCTION STAFF
Costume assistant Valérie Deschênes; Costume prototypes Atelier de couture Sonya B.; Properties
production Atelier Sylvain Racine, Christian Hamel, Décors 3D, Général Flight, Productions Yves
Nicol; Lighting assistants Valy Tremblay, Julien Blais-Savoie; Set designer assistants Anna Tusell
Sanchez, Santiago Martos Gonzalez
WORKSHOP PERFORMERS Geneviève Bérubé, Jacinthe Pauzé Boisvert, Daniel Desparois,
François Isabelle, Éric Robidoux, Martin Vaillancourt
lacaserne.net
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